Currents

During the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives’ (AIEC) annual meeting, held July 27-28, Board Chairman Dennis Fredrickson presented the Chairman’s Award to the Illinois linemen who helped to electrify Bolivian villages earlier this year. Those receiving the award were left to right: Tim Baker and Bret Richards, Corn Belt Energy Corporation; Joseph Alexander and Ryan […]

The board of Directors of Egyptian Electric Cooperative Association, ­currently headquartered in Steeleville, Ill., is seeking a highly-qualified ­candidate to fill the ­position of Executive Vice President/General Manager. The headquarters will soon relocate to its new facility just north of Murphysboro. Applicants should have high integrity, positive ­leadership, and be effective communicators. A four-year college […]

Candy Crush. Netflix. Access to high-speed internet certainly offers a wealth of entertainment options. But for rural America, broadband can bring family businesses, education and healthcare on par with the world, an electric cooperative leader told Congress. “For rural residents, high-speed broadband is not just about pastimes like Netflix; more importantly it’s about a chance […]

Developing a great idea into a technology that impacts the market and the world is difficult. Doing so with an energy- or ­science-based technology can seem nearly impossible for ­entrepreneurs. Complex tech­nical ­challenges, long develop­ment cycles, expensive lab ­equipment, and impatient ­investors ­create high hurdles for even the most determined innovators to overcome. Chain Reaction […]

What does it take to generate additional energy in Washington, D.C.? How about sending more than 1,700 rural youth leaders, from across the United States, for a weeklong look at government in action? Illinois electric and telephone cooperatives sponsored 69 Illinois high school students to the nation’s capital, June 9-16, for an experience of a lifetime. […]

It’s hardly the turnaround that rural America has been waiting for, but a gauge of economic activity in the nation’s heartland has shown an uptick for the first time in nearly two years. The Rural Mainstreet Index, produced by Creighton University, reached a mark of 50.1 in May, its highest ­reading since July 2015 when […]

Ken Maschhoff, of Carlyle, was recently named ­president of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). A fifth-generation pork producer, he has also served on the Illinois Pork Producers Association Board of Directors. Maschhoff is chairman of the Maschhoff Family Foods Board of Directors which is the parent ­company of Maschhoffs, LLC, which focuses on pork […]

As a mostly ­regulatory state agency, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) processes more than 70,000 licenses each year for farmers, ­producers, agri­businesses and various other ­organizations. Under an ­initiative launched by Governor Bruce Rauner, all state agencies are ­looking for ways to improve the way state govern­ment meets the needs of Illinois’ ­taxpayers. With […]

According to the Illinois Farm Bureau (IFB), Illinois agriculture needs to act before Monarch butterflies join a national list of threatened and endangered species. The state is ­developing two strategies. The first would be part of a multistate flyway plan and submitted to U.S. Fish and Wildlife. The other Illinois plan is to guide conservation […]

Legislation recently passed by the Illinois Senate and House gives the governor the ability to increase gross ­vehicle weight limits during harvest ­emergencies. Senate Bill 1576 was sponsored by Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Moline and the House ­version HB 2580, sponsored by Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, gives the governor the authority to increase the vehicle weight […]